Call of Duty are being sued by the family of a man who once ‘burnt witches alive’

I put it to you that there are certain qualities you look for in an African warlord. You’re looking for a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life. You’re looking for a guy who knows how to set up and run a successful torture chamber. You’re looking for a laureate of pain and destruction. And I guess you’re also looking for someone who’s pretty robust, someone who grabs his machete when he’s offended, not a pen.

Jonas Savimbi was most of these things. He wasn’t Idi Amin, but he was monstrous enough. His family are suing Activision because they’re unhappy with the way Savimbi was portrayed in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Here is Savimbi in CoD, making you yearn for the lost, innocent days when games were Crash Bandicoot running into giant apples.

Three of Savimbi’s children accuse Activision Blizzard of defamation by representing him as a “barbarian”. It’s worth pointing out that Savimbi once literally burnt some women alive at his compound because he thought they were “witches”. I reckon most people’s definition of “barbarian” would stretch to include that. His kids are seeking €1m ($1.1m; £0.75m) in damages. Activision bantered them pretty strongly, saying their depiction was “rather favourable”.

“Seeing him kill people, cutting someone’s arm off… that isn’t Dad,” said Cheya Savimbi. I would love to know what the real Savimbi was like. I can’t imagine him being like your Dad, getting flustered in B&Q, cooking an oven pizza in the microwave by accident, asking you why you haven’t accepted his friend request on Facebook, dressing more and more like style icon Jeremy Clarkson as the years drag on, wondering aloud why Five Guys is so expensive, replacing you with a dog because you’re never at home anymore, and reminiscing about the time he burned all those witches at his compound during the Angolan Civil War.